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Paying for Better Math and Science Teachers
Coryoth writes "While California is suffering from critical shortage of mathematics and science teachers, Kentucky is considering two bills that would give explicit financial incentives to math and science students and teachers. The first bill would provide cash incentives to schools to run AP math and science classes, and cash scholarships to students who did well on AP math and science exams. The second bill provides salary bumps for any teachers with degrees in math or science, or who score well in teacher-certification tests in math, chemistry and physics. Is such differentiated pay the right way to attract science graduates who can make much more in industry, or is it simply going to breed discontent among teachers?"
>...or is it simply going to breed discontent among teachers?
Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Either that, or enslave post-grads for a few years and FORCE them to work at public school wages. That'll work... Yeah.I hate "IS/OR" questions like this. The answer to both is YES. Pay which is competative with industry will attract science grads to teach. It will also cause "discontent among teachers" who somehow feel that all teachers should earn the same -- regardless of education/demand for certain skillsets.
Queue the teachers union to strike/protest.
This proposed system to get better math and science educators and educations sounds like a meritocracy approach, which may be a foreign concept to some in the heavily union-controlled teacher community. It would seem that something as important as the education of our children the most important goal would be to fund and organize the most effective educational system possible.
While I don't know the intricacies of the teachers' unions, I've had enough discussions with my sister, a teacher, to suspect the best interests of the children are rarely in play in decsions around who should teach and how much those who teach should be paid. If this is really true, it is probably the wrong approach.
A central tenet of the school pay system appears to be their main stumbling block: FTA:
There's a certain insanity to the notion that different demand-disciplines (in the market workplace) should not help guide salary distribution in the teaching systems. High-demand, high-pay disciplines should drive high-pay teaching positions. If an English teacher's 50% cut to a Physics teacher's pay bothers the English teacher, he (she) need only get the necessary background to qualify to teach physics. It seems like a simple equation... it's kind of (not exactly) how it works in the job market.
I'm all for a meritocracy for teachers, and not just in the math and sciences. Unfortunately, from past observations, as long as government runs educational systems, and unions govern teacher selection, the "finest education" for the children is likely the last result we'll see.
Want to place odds on whether Kentucky pulls off getting these bills passed? And, if passed, want to double down on the teachers' unions' resistance? That said, good luck to Kentucky... I hope they pull it off.
Is such differentiated pay the right way to attract science graduates who can make much more in industry, or is it simply going to breed discontent among teachers?
Why can't it be both?
Teachers face the same hurdles that you may experience in the IT field. Most of us have been in the position where you ae looking to take on a job that you are more than qualified for. You get the "We think you are overqualified for this position", which translates to "You are bound to want too much money". The same applies to teachers.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
We already spend a shit load of money on education and the results are poor at best. So what do we do? Spend more money of course! I think the US needs to look at other cultures to see how its done. We're obviously missing something and it definitely isn't money.
gasmonso http://religiousfreaks.com/Is such differentiated pay the right way to attract science graduates who can make much more in industry, or is it simply going to breed discontent among teachers?
More competitive pay may attract science grads who could make more elsewhere, but I'd argue that it's worthwhile to avoid breeding discontent by giving all teachers that same raise. They certainly deserve it for all the extra hours a teacher puts in grading, preparing lessons, and other "homework." Counting all that, my teacher friends put in more hours in a nine-month school year than I do in a twelve-month sysadmin's year, but they make half the money. Besides, if extra money will improve the applicant pool for science teachers, won't it do the same for english or history teachers too?
I'd like to be a teacher. Some of the greatest influences on my life have been teachers. I like teaching kids science and computers, and I've got a talent for it.
But I'll never be a teacher under current systems.
I'm not patient with kids who don't get it and insist on me walking them through everything. None of my favorite teachers were either. I'm not respectful of authority either, unless it's earned that respect. None of my favorite teachers were either. And if parents insist that little Taylor or Brittany didn't earn the C they got on the test, I'll tell them where they can shove their complaints. And I'm not about to waste my time teaching kids for a test. Some of the best lessons in life can't be tested. I'd reward kids for creativity, an inquisitive nature, the questioning of current thinking, and for making me look dumb. All the kinds of things my favorite teachers rewarded me for.
I feel that, in this current climate, I wouldn't last a year as that kind of teacher. In fact, two of my favorite teachers got fired after I had them because of complaints and friction with the administration. And they were replaced with robots designed to make more robots. Indeed, most of the teachers I remember fondly only lasted as long as they did because they produced results despite friction with the administration and parents.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
How about basing teacher pay on performance?
And who judges performance?
If it's the school administration, then you risk the principal's favorites getting paid just because they're the favorites.
If it's based on standardized tests, then you just get teachers teaching kids how to take standardized tests, which is ultimately results in a lousier education.
EXACTLY! Not everyone should go to college. I know far to many "business" majors, or "communications" majors who leave college after 4-5 years of drunkenness (see face-book...) with a huge student loan and expect to earn 50K+ per year. Then the reality of the marketplace hits like a ton of bricks and you have these 'grads' earning a bit above minimum wage working retail or something unrelated to their college education.
There is an unhealthy stigma that goes along with people not going to college, and I disagree with it. College, while wonderful for some, is not good for others. 2 year trade schools, or apprenticeships should be encouraged far more than they are. And this is relevant to the topic because the students are told by their teachers that if they don't go to college, they will be useless to society. (or at least thats how I was taught)
There is a problem with the teaching system in the United States, and it starts with the students being far too empowered. If little Johnny does something wrong, teacher (rightly!) punishes Johnny, he cries to Mommy, and Mommy sides with Johnny. Teacher's hands are tied and so they stop caring. I have plenty of friends that are teachers, and this is a common story. There are more problems, but I firmly believe that the problem originates at discipline.
--sig fault--
One of the problems this will encourage is that these days parents *expect* their kids to be in AP classes even if they're not qualified to be there. I recently judged a high school science fair, and it was pretty plain that most students didn't even do the minimum, a few just checked off the boxes, and very, very few really tried to do the work required for science.
The first thing that needs to happen is that AP classes need to not be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator because of political reasons, and everyone shouldn't get a pony- we have to get back to having kids *lose* if they don't make the cut.
http://www.pauldrobertson.com
Because we don't have a shortage of English or History teachers. It's not a bias. It's supply and demand. People with expertise in math and science can find far more lucrative jobs in industry than they can teaching public schools, and without dealing with the kind of idiotic bureaucracy that tends to rule in them, but the same cannot be said of English or history majors. You cannot "increase the complexity of the curriculum" without expertise in the subject matter.
And the brethren went away edified.
And who judges performance?
If it's the school administration, then you risk the principal's favorites getting paid just because they're the favorites.
Welcome to the working world!
Who judges performance? Your manager.
Can mangers play favorites resulting in unfair compensation? Absolutely.
Can metrics be put in place to minimize this possibility? Certainly.
Will management then monkey with the metrics to do whatever they want (usually minimize everyone's compensation)?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
These problems aren't unique to education, but the rest of us seem to find a reasonable compromise.
And part of the problem are teacher's unions. Most force a system were all new teachers are paid the same, with the same tenure requirements and the same raise/bonus requirements. There is little if no incentive to become a teacher of "hard" subjects like math and science when you can get the same salary and job security in one of the "soft" subjects like social science, art, music or gym. This is why most schools have a glut of "soft" subject teachers and why there are so many bad math and science teachers.
What happens is the shortage of math and science teachers forces the school to make a "soft" subject teacher teach those subjects. They end up doing a terrible job because they aren't trained in it, don't have an excitement about the subject and generally feel that they will only being doing the job temporarily. This maybe the case but only because they are sacked (not likely given our tenure system) or quit when they reach a certain level of dissatisfaction. Otherwise a school is stuck with a crappy math or science teacher until they retire.
If the research was done I bet a good causal relationship of bad math and science teachers and lower student interest/performance in those subjects could be made. Getting rid of the ridiculous parts of the union system and creating a Milwaukee, WI style school choice program will go a long way to better teachers, better schools and students that will be able to compete globally again.
"Honestly, you should see what it takes to become a teacher, it isn't much."
It is enough to discourage people who have degrees in their fields from entering teaching. Why would I want to sacrifice at least a few years of very good pay just to qualify to become eligible to teach in the field I already have a degree in?
(In MA, at least, you need a teaching certification which requires extra schooling in education to get. Don't know what the rule is in other states.)
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
what you pay for. Well unless the unions get in the act then you get over paid shit. OOPS did I say that out load?
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
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... breed discontent among teachers.
It will blow up into a big ol' envy-fest
The teachers' unions will make sure of that.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
That Kentucky (or any state in the U.S.) applies the same logic to education is no surprise, but why do Slashdotters acquiesce to determining teachers' salary by central planning and government mandate? The free market should determine teachers' salaries. The prerequisite, of course, would be to eliminate government-run schools and let private schools compete for tuition money from parents.
Yes, I am one of the tens of thousands of signatories to the Proclamation for the Separation of School and State
I work for public education, and get to visit many a classroom and the thought of putting my kid in a public school scares the crap out of me so much, that my kids don't go to public school, they attend a homestudy charter school. Both will graduate High School with upto two years of college credits, something not even offered in public schools.
.....
I've seen good and bad teachers in the schools I work in, and quite frankly, there aren't enough good teachers. Period. Like the teacher who was teaching life lessons from the master "Rikki Lake" (No kidding). Or the Social Science Teacher teaching made up crap and opinions as "fact". Or the Math teacher who didn't know the formula for the area of a circle (No kidding), Or the teacher that has four computers on his desk and that is all he does all day, instead of teaching the special education kids in his charge, or
It is pretty scary stuff, if you ask me. The scariest part is that NONE of the teachers I mentioned could be fired, because the Union says so. It is clear that the Union doesn't really care about their profession, or it would be EMBARRASSED of many of its members.
I feel really sorry about those teachers that are actually good. However, they cannot overcome the crap coming from the worst of them. Sad, but true.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
WHAT?
You have no idea what you are talking about at all. Period. Whatsoever.
Do you know why we have so many problems with youth acting out in this country? Because we treat them like animals, utterly undeserving of respect. Then we wonder why we don't get any back from them and call them little bastards and the like.
In school, I was a troublemaker because I was bored. You see, the American school system was designed to create factory workers and it has never actually been revamped since. The #1 "skill" they want you to learn is how to sit still, be quiet, and go unnoticed. You are trained to be a cog in a machine. You have an assigned seat, into which you are placed. This is the axle upon which your cog is mounted. You have an assigned curriculum, which is delivered to all children equally, whether it is far above or far below their abilities. Of course, in order to make this work with standardized testing, it has been dumbed down so that practically any student will pass. This makes the dumb students feel good about themselves, which helps them learn. It makes the smart students bored, and makes them feel like everything is easy, so they don't have to try hard any more. So we fail to bring out the potential in some students in order to help others limp along.
Am I proposing that we leave those students completely behind? Absolutely not. But the time when we should have realized that teaching all students as if they were the same simply does not work has long since come and gone. Some students will never achieve much in English, while some will never do well in math. Why should we seek to make them all identical? Perhaps we should simply accept that some people are better-suited to certain careers than others. And perhaps - although this is a bit of a stretch in any capitalistic society - perhaps we should be placing less emphasis on the career and more on actual happiness! Maybe if we put less importance on the trappings of society we'd have less anorexics, less burnouts, less of everything bad.
But basically, we do everything wrong in education. We go so far as to teach people the scientific method, and to regard science as important, and then utterly ignore many of the fruits of science. Studies have shown that waking teenagers up in the early morning actively retards their development, but we don't move junior high and high school starting times later in the day. We know through testing that students do their best under broad-spectrum incandescents and sunlight, the latter being the best of course, but instead of taking advantage of this knowledge we continue to put them under old-school, flickery fluorescents. We put computers in classrooms and then instead of using computers intelligently and teaching childen about logic and the world through them, we get a smug sense of self-satisfaction when we teach them to touch-type. Who can say but that we might already all be using direct neural interfaces if instead of teaching children to sit in rows and tap the same sequences of keys, we had been teaching them to expand their minds and explore their world?
No, my friend, the problem is not that students are too empowered. The problem is that we treat them like cattle. The problem lies not with them, but with us. And the problem is not one of discipline, but respect. You can "discipline" your children all you like but the only discipline it will teach them is to not get caught. If you instead treated your children with respect, they would learn to treat you the same, and you could enter a working relationship with them. Instead we expect them to obey our orders like dogs.
Or put another way, Respect works both ways. Fear only goes in one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I've sometimes considered teaching, but after seeing what a relative went through when earning her teaching certificate, there's no way in hell I'd do it under the current system.
At least in her classes, the students were apathetic and disrespectful. In her assessment, basically zero learning occurred.
Contrast that to what I get when I teach my kids at home. We snuggle up and read a homeschooling book about astronomy, and they actually learn. We pop in a "Magic Schoolbus" DVD rental, and even I learn stuff about human physiology, etc. My 6 year old knows multiplication table up through 7's, and reads at a 3rd-grade level.
Seeing the heartbreaking gap between what most kids can learn, and what most kids do learn in public school, keeps me from ever wanting to perpetuate that environment. I'm considering working with small groups of kids and possibly even doing some math teaching to home-schooled kids. But public schools - no way. It's mostly a waste.
An arts degree does not set you up for any useful function beyond teaching. They can pay art teachers squat and the only competition comes from McDonalds burger-flipping jobs.
A degreed scientist/math person has far better prospects and the schools will have to compete to attract them.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
From the Wall Street Journal (Friday, February 2, 2007), teachers actually make on average $34.06 an hour. That's a bit more than I make as a Software Engineer in the private sector. The whole reason teacher's salaries look low is that no one counts the massive amounts of time off teachers get (or all the civil servant benefits) that private sector workers can only dream about. The full article is available here: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.ht ml?id=110009612
Are teacher overpaid or underpaid, or have we gotten it just right? Easy enough!
Just look at the supply of teachers - are there enough qualified applicants for an open position at the salary you are offering? If I were an administrator, I would want at least twenty serious applications for a position, of which I could interview five or six and then pick the one who fit best. Are schools getting this many serious applicants?
In most cases, yes. In some cases, they are getting far more applicants than is necessary, indicating that the salary offered is too high. A suburban school posting a job for an elementary position in any decent district will be flooded with applications, normally hundreds and sometimes exceeding a thousand. On the other hand, there are not enough qualified math, science, and special education teachers, as well as teachers willing to teach in troubled rural or urban schools. It is clear from this that any employer besides a public school would cut the pay of elementary teachers and boost the pay of math teachers until qualified people for both positions could be found.
The reason I am not a secondary science teacher today is the poor pay. I make twice as much working as a researcher at a major corporation, and have a job that shuts off at 5pm each day without all the headaches. On the other hand, few elementary or English teachers could make double their teachers' pay. Indeed, few of them could even match it in the private sector.
Colleges and universities do not pay all professors the same. They know how to do it, and prove it can be done. Public schools need to move beyond the silly "all teachers are equal" mindset they have been stuck in for decades. It is killing education.
...through life, son! Unfortunately, a large portion of my fellow citizens are doing their best to pack on the fat, reduce the quality of education, and push their religion into government.
*shrug*
They can always join the military! With Lil'Bush making noise about Iran, we'll have a deep need for people to die in the desert for Haliburton and Exxon!
(only partially serious)
Blar.
This is where the problem lies...
;-)
Being knowledgeable and being a good teacher are 2 completely different things. How do I know?
Glad you asked,
I'm a PhD student in Mech. Engineering at a top 10 school working through the NSF GK-12 Fellowship program and putting in 30hrs/week at a local school. Believe me when I tell you that being smart and being a good teacher at that level are 2 completely different things and I've been decorated and distinguished as a TA from our undergrads and the department. Middle/High School is a different ball game ENTIRELY.
I've learned to keep my mouth shut when it comes to criticizing our educational system - my advise, donate your time to a local school and you'll quickly learn why you love your job so much. It's dang hard work with very little reward other than the smiles on their faces.
This was after a 3 week (50hr/week) summer intensive course on education - there are education theories out there that make a lot of sense and work. You wouldn't know this because the vast majority of my teachers haven't followed them. There is more to being a good educator then being smart in your field - it requires being knowledgeable in the theories of education also.
That said, I find that the teachers at my school to be extremely petty (maybe it's a catfighting thing) but the politics are horrible and the acknowledgements are nonexistent.
What have I learned? I love my field
Let's be honest. Math and science are more important. Period. History is a very close second. We need kids who understand the basics of the scientific method and mathematics so that they know how to solve problems. We need kids who understand history so that the ones who become politicians don't end up fucking thing up as badly as the current crowd has. So yes, math and science teachers should be paid more than the art teachers. And football coaches should be paid less than art teachers.
But really, the problem with education isn't pay-grade differences. It's actually a situation where liberals and conservatives have both come together to fuck things up. The conservatives offer Christian fundamentalist parents to put pressure on school boards to teach creationism or similar frauds, uneducated morons sitting on education boards to decide what is and isn't science and a ridiculous philosophy that free-market capitalism actually applies to education in the form of "No Child Left Behind". Oh yeah, and they have a worrisome trust for standardized test scores as a benchmark for performance.
The liberals, on the other hand, offer hideously overpowered teacher's unions that keep shitty teachers employed, an inane attitude that no kid should ever fail and an unreasonable expectation that every kid should go to college. Really, when did becoming a plumber or electrician become something so terrible? You can make a good, honest living doing plenty of trade jobs. But not every kid belongs in college, and filling colleges with kids who don't belong there sucks resources from actual higher education and diverts it to joke majors like "park and recreation management". And since every kid has to go to college now, they have to have enough majors for everyone!